The Wise Oak Mechanics Explanation

Hey guys, I'm Tee, and with the help of GGG I designed The Wise oak. Now that the legacy league's been going for a few days, I wanted to take the chance to clear up questions about this item, if there are any remaining.

The Wise Oak works off of the recently-introduced mechanic called Uncapped. I know this term is a little confusing, and even though there's some text that helps describe it in-game (hold alt and hover over the item) I'm going to give the easiest explanation I can: Uncapped resistances refer to the number in parentheses (next to your resistances) in the defense tab of the character sheet.

With that part out of the way, I'd like to provide a bit of clarification for the item itself. Admittedly I feel as though I owe the development team an apology and at the same time a huge thanks for getting the wording figured out on this one. It's confusing for sure, but it hits the nail on the head once you understand it.

This flask provides a defensive buff to whichever resistances share the lowest uncapped value, and a penetration buff to whichever resistances share the highest uncapped value. To put it simply: Yes, if any or all of your resistances match, they will share benefits. For example:

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Fire res: 120
Cold res: 120
Lightning res:110

In this scenario, you gain the penetration bonus to Fire and Cold because they are tied for the highest value. Lightning will get the defensive buff. Or, in the perfect scenario:

Fire res: 120
Cold res: 120
Lightning res: 120

In this scenario, you are in fact getting the offensive and the defensive buff to every element.

I originally proposed a similar (but much more difficult) idea back in August when Uncapped didn't exist. When Uncapped was revealed, we took the opportunity to change the flask but made sure to keep its unique identity from other flasks by focusing on your resistances to provide offense and defense simultaneously. I love the end result, because this item has such amazing synergy with flasks like Vessel of Vinktar and Taste of Hate and I'm excited to try to make a build that uses it. I've also always been a fan of the underappreciated Bismuth base type, which is why I chose that one.

As a final note, I'm curious to hear what players think might think is the thematic inspiration for this item's name and flavor. I'd love to see some guesses, but I won't say anything unless you get it just right.

This flask is a min maxer's dream come true. I try to get my resists to exactly 125 total with nothing wasted.

I wish the base item was anything but bismuth though. Was this something GGG insisted?
Perhaps they thought it would be too strong as a silver or diamond flask?

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Nephalim wrote:

I try to get my resists to exactly 125 total with nothing wasted.

uhhh... do you mean 135? 135 is what you need for "capped all resists in Merciless;" 169% is what you need for "capped all resists against Map Elemental Weakness."

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adghar wrote:

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Nephalim wrote:

I try to get my resists to exactly 125 total with nothing wasted.

uhhh... do you mean 135? 135 is what you need for "capped all resists in Merciless;" 169% is what you need for "capped all resists against Map Elemental Weakness."

Yes, that's what I meant.

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Nephalim wrote:

This flask is a min maxer's dream come true. I try to get my resists to exactly 125 total with nothing wasted.

I wish the base item was anything but bismuth though. Was this something GGG insisted?
Perhaps they thought it would be too strong as a silver or diamond flask?

I insisted on Bismuth.

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ToBeSomebody wrote:

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Nephalim wrote:

This flask is a min maxer's dream come true. I try to get my resists to exactly 125 total with nothing wasted.

I wish the base item was anything but bismuth though. Was this something GGG insisted?
Perhaps they thought it would be too strong as a silver or diamond flask?

I insisted on Bismuth.

I think the underlying question was why.

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silumit wrote:

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ToBeSomebody wrote:

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Nephalim wrote:

This flask is a min maxer's dream come true. I try to get my resists to exactly 125 total with nothing wasted.

I wish the base item was anything but bismuth though. Was this something GGG insisted?
Perhaps they thought it would be too strong as a silver or diamond flask?

I insisted on Bismuth.

I think the underlying question was why.

I've always been a fan of the base type, and think it's a bit undervalued. Understandably it's mostly only used for a leveling flask, or to offset resistances lost in curse maps, and so I wanted to offer a solution that allowed for one to be utilized in the endgame.

I don't expect any hardcore Pathfinder builds to try and get 100% uptime out of it and rely on the 105% res it gives, but I'm excited to see if it happens regardless.

"

silumit wrote:

I think the underlying question was why.

My guess?

Thematically appropriate: The entire set of Unique mods is themed around nonspecific elemental resistances.

Balanced: 10% elemental RDT and 20% penetration to all elements AND Lucky Crits or Onslaught? That's kind of insane.

For reference, if you have vanilla Fortify, 10% eleRDT is 12.5% less elemental hit damage taken.

With Jugger's Max End Charge eleRDT + Jugger's Fortify-buff node,

1 - ((100 - 20 - 5 - 8 - 10) / (100 - 20 - 5 - 8)) = just about 15% less elemental hit damage taken.

Add on the Rampart Cluster and Kongming's Strategem and you have:

1 - ((100 - 20 - 5 - 8 - 10 - 3 - 30) / (100 - 20 - 5 - 8 - 3 - 30)) = just about 30% less elemental hit damage taken from Spells.

A total of 20 + 5 + 8 + 10 + 3 + 30 = 76% reduced elemental spell damage taken, or 316.7% more EHP against elemental Spell Damage.

What's that about Atziri Flameblasts one-shotting you?

I wont be so sure thos defences are gona be realy that important as they are insignificent compered to offensive sinergy.

so if you are doing a lot of lightning damage, you can't use this new flask and dying sun together.

on builds doing many different kinds of damage then this flask isn't good at all and still you should not use dying sun with it if you are doing lightning damage